Phillips seeks to lower expectations in New Hampshire

Rep. Dean Phillips (Minn.), a long-shot candidate running against President Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination, sought to lower expectations ahead of the New Hampshire primary Tuesday, setting a high bar for Biden’s performance in the state, even as the president is not officially on the ballot. 

Phillips told NewsNation anchor Chris Cuomo in an interview on Monday he expects he can get above 25 percent of the vote in the first-in-the-nation primary, but getting to the 20s would be “literally unexpected and quite extraordinary.” 

He also slammed the write-in effort that is trying to get Biden a win in the state. 

“The fact that Joe Biden’s not on the ballot, well, you know what? People know he’s the president, they know it’s a primary, they’re working their tails off to get a write-in campaign. I’m telling you, he’s gonna be the very weak candidate, now not just on polls, which we all know, now voters are going to demonstrate the same thing,” Phillips said. 

The Biden campaign chose not to be on the ballot after New Hampshire defied the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in still holding its primary first despite the committee shuffling the primary schedule to make South Carolina first. 

The DNC stripped New Hampshire of the ability to award any delegates for the nomination and directed candidates not to participate, as the Biden campaign did. 

But supporters of Biden in the state have still launched an intensive write-in campaign in an attempt to notch him the victory anyway over his most notable long-shot rivals, Phillips and author Marianne Williamson. 

Phillips noted several Biden allies have visited New Hampshire in recent weeks to support the write-in campaign, arguing it shows they’re getting “desperate.” He said if Biden does not get at least 80 percent in the state, then it would show he is the “weak candidate” he has been talking about “for months.” 

Incumbent presidents running for reelection in the New Hampshire primary who have formally been on the ballot have historically won about 80 percent of the vote in the Granite State when they faced little to no opposition. This includes former Presidents Clinton in 1996, George W. Bush in 2004 and Obama in 2012, all of whom went on to win reelection. 

Democratic strategists said they expect the write-in campaign will ultimately be successful in getting Biden the win, but they also cast doubt that the result will mean much with him not formally campaigning. 

Phillips has pointed to Biden’s low approval rating and polls showing that most Americans do not want a repeat matchup of him and former President Trump as the parties’ nominees as his reason for running. 

“I think Americans might just be waking up to the fact that we have an option,” he said.